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My family owns a large ranch on the sunny side of the Oklahoma Arbuckle Mts, close to Springer, OK. In the summer of 1901 Taff and Ulrich (USGS)camped out on our property and mapped and named many formations. University of Oklahoma's first geologist, Charles Gould also assisted. Honey Creek meanders across the property exposing formations from Cambrian to Pennsylvanian age. I have collected fossils there and the surrounding area for over 50 years. As a small child I began separating the fossils into groups. Algae, bryozoan, brachiopod, blastoids, carpoids, callixylon (first wood),conularids, crinoids, cystoids, corals, calamites(horse tails), echinoderms, gastropods, graptolite, hyolitha, jellyfish, Mollusca, ostracoda, stromatolites, sponge and tentaculites. But never found any transistional species demonstrating evolution. From 1967 -1969 workers built Interstate Highway I-35 cutting through the Arbuckle Mts. Dr. Fay from the USGS collected over 400 bags of fossils from Cambrian to Pennsylvanian from the road cuts. He also did not find transistional species. Only abrupt, stability, and extinction.Point is: I find it amazing that biology teachers, teaching evolution as a fact when most have never felt the earth and found even a single fossil. Darwins Book without a single mathematical equation, or chart or graph, only an imaginary tree is considered the most popular science book. More popular than Plato, Newton and Einstein is also very amazing to me. It seems that every biology book should reference an algorithm that converts random data to intelligent information. But I am just an old astrophysicist.

Recently I was asked to speak to the Oklahoma engineers club. I first showed a piece of pre-Cambrian Tishomingo granite. Next I showed the overlying Upper Cambrian Reagan sandstone contact. I informed the audience that the Reagan sandstone at this particular location in the Arbuckle Mts is 300 ft thick and overlies the eroded Precambrian granite, and was the first sedimentary material in Oklahoma. Next I showed a piece of Reagan Sandstone found 150 ft above the granite/Reagan contact. This material contains the first Oklahoma fossils including trilobite Ptychoparia. After zooming into the trilobites compound eye (one of natures most complex eye) the engineers were amazed from its complexity. I informed the audience that the trilobite was the first species to have eye sight, and compound eyes are excellent for detecting minute movements. I then said, we are all men and women of science, and science starts with a question.How did the first species to have sight know there was an energy source (a star)that emitted photons? The trilobite eyelets (3,000 of them) utilize two optical calcite lenses that must be calibrated to prevent field view overlap. One lens to gather and focus the light and the second to correct for spherical aberration. The second lens requires 2nd order differential equations to determine its complex shape. Also the trilobite was aware of Plank's formula and constant needed to determine photon energies at different frequencies. Also knowledge of trig, calculus, Abbe's and Snell's laws of optical physics, knowledge that optical calcite has double refraction properties, and density of sea water. Then the trilobite determined that the closest star (the sun) was a black body emitter and visible light was most transparent in sea water, and knowledge of atomic physics to know that hydrogen in water absorbs red light 100x more than blue light. Photoreceptors and optical nerves were needed to connect to the trilobite brain where compound visual processing would be needed to stitch together the image. Then I asked, as engineers how did the most complex eye in nature create its self from non purpose driven, no end goal, random, blind processes? A room filled with engineers in total silence. I then said, matter of fact, Darwin even said, "to think that something as complex as the eye created its self, is absurd". After the lecture the audience looked at my fossil display that I had set up. The Oklahoma fossils ranged from the Upper Cambrian to the Pennsylvanian, 280 million years of geologic time and 34,000 ft of strata without a single example of macro-evolution. Many after scanning the display of fossils asked, seems that trilobites appear abruptly in the fossil record without transitions. I said, yes. Many then asked, then why is evolution taught to young people as fact? I said, many people today see with their feelings and listen with their eyes. Pascal may have said it best, don't bother me with facts, my mind is already made up.

About Me

I'm a 40-something, life long student of Geology living in Philadelphia. My interests include Photography, Architecture and History among other things. When not cleaning my recent finds you'll find me in my backyard Hybridizing Daylilies or working in my garden. This Blog is an outlet for me to express my interest in fossils, catalog my collection and coalesce my thoughts and research into a useful medium.